J. Ito

related links:

Neoteny

Joichi Ito: Net Vision / Net Excellence Jury Member

You are one of the stars of the 'new Economy': you have launched Eccosys, Japan's first web production company, Digital Garage, a web marketing and solutions provider, Infoseek Japan, and Neoteny, an Internet business incubator and investment company. How do you see the the development during the last year? Was it all a big bubble? Whats the direction now?

Ito: I think that there was definitely a bubble of speculation on the part of investors and entrepreneurs trying to make a quick fortune. I think that IT and the Internet have been moving forward since before the bubble and will continue long afterwards. The method of funding new ventures have and will change, but the basic things we need to do are the same. Actually, life is much more simple without all of the speculators crowding our space.

I believe one of the most significant impacts that the Net will have is on copyright and on mass media. I believe the 'public' will be affected in a similar to what happened after the invention of the printing press. I believe the significant changes in media are yet to come.

You have a bicultural background, as your companies. What do you think of some trends in the Internet towards an exclusion - China is working on the Great Firewall, there is geolocation software which allows you to denie access to people to your site because of their geographical location. It seems that the net becomes more and more fragmented.

Ito: I think it is becoming more fragmented and will become more and more fragmented. I don't think this is necessarily bad as long as there are gateways. I don't think we can assume that everything we decide will work for everyone. I think that diversity is a good way to dampen the fluctuation amplification that we see today. I think we have used a lot of energy to hook everyone up, and might start spending more time trying to be hooked up to just those people we want to be hooked up to.

You say that the Net is so different from other media because is it much more about context, as opposed to content. What do you mean by that?

Ito: Well, I wrote something for Ars Electronica a while ago (see www.neoteny.com/jito/english/context/context.html I think it is still pretty relevant. The idea is that 'content' is a low context form of information that works well with the manufacturing model when we use copyright to forge information in to a 'thing', package it and mass distribute it like CD's, books, or television.

Context oriented information is stock quotes, email, community, etc. Context oriented information has become practical through the Net and it is about timing and relationships. It is really the value of the Network rather than the stored information.

The Net is about being connected in real time. It is not necessarily the right architecture for broadcast, printing, or other mass 1->N communications at this point.

This year's festival theme will be 'unplugged – Art as the Scene of Global Conflicts'. It will treat among others the 'blind spots' of the net, globalisation, digital divide etc. What is your vision? Will there be some time where everybody is plugged? Or will the cracks on the net get deeper and deeper?

Ito: I think there will be many level. I believe that infrastructures such as identification, certification, legal jurisdiction, WTO membership, security, privacy, etc. will force us to create islands and interconnections. As the transactions and relationships on the Net begin to become more and more important, many types of controls will come in place. Having said that, I hope and believe that there will be parts of the Internet that will accessible to all.

You have been member in the very first Net jury of Prix Ars Electronica in 1995. There has been a remake of the category last year. Whas it successful in your eyes? What kind of works do you hope to see this year?

Ito: I think it was successful and applaud the Prix for making the change I think that the jury will receive better quality pieces and involves more people in nomination which I think is key, since many Net artists don't know that they are artists. ;-)




no comments yet